Hong Kong Disneyland is finally going to get its own Haunted Mansion. Called "Mystic Manor," it opens in mid-May, and is a radical departure from the existing Mansions and Manor -- they've gone bananas with the old electroluminscent paint, in a very good way indeed. Here's a video of one of the preview ride-throughs.

The first area is Acquisitions and Cataloging Room, where Lord Mystic's collections are temporary placed and awaited to placed on shelves. The music box Lord Mystic mentioned is now in front of guests. Albert suddenly pops out and unlocks the box. The escaping magic dust floats in the air and brings life to all artifacts.

The first show case is the Music Room, in which weird and exotic music instruments are stored. A piano is placed in the centre of the room. The magic dust gives life to instrument and music plays. The music will follow the carriage and play the background music for the journey. Albert is excited and amazed. He follows the carriage, curious to visit all rooms.

The next stop is Mediterranean Antiquities. Paintings, ceramics, and Audio-Animatronic® statues start to move under the influence of the dust. An amphora with Hercules fighting with Nemean Lion to conquer Zeus’s quest spins and rocks when the carriage passes. The above description is taken from the Greek myths, the story of Hercules. As what the story told, Hercules only battled once with a lion, which is known as the Nemean Lion.

The carriages move into to a Solarium Room. Albert tries to toy around with the Venus fly traps as he is holding a piece of banana to them, then all of a sudden a large Venus fly trap open it's jaw as it tries to bite the guests, the room then becomes pitch black.

Soon afterward, the carriage enters the Slavic-Nordic Chamber. There is a painting of a Nordic God. He comes to life and blows freezing wind towards guests. Guests are able to feel cooling effect and see the special-effect smoke in this scene.

Maybe so. The Haunted Mansion has depictions of skeletons and bones, and I think that sort of stuff is considered far more objectionable in Chinese culture than the states (I think Blizzard went so far as to remove all skulls/skeletons/bones from the Chinese release of Warcraft). Of course, Disney tends to keep ‘scary’ content rather tame anyway.

Along with Cantonese, English is one of the two primary spoken languages in Hong Kong. Remember, the island was a British territory until 1997. Originally it was a colony ceded in the Treaty of Nanking, prior to which the island had only a small population of fishermen and their families, but after the First Opium War, tens of thousands of mainland Chinese and thousands of British settled there. As a concession in the “unequal treaties” it became, in effect, a way for China to save face by “allowing” the British to have an trading port free from paying duties, while not allowing that port on the mainland. Later, the British leased the island from China for 99 years. So, like Singapore, the education system was modeled mainly along British lines. Because it was explicitly established as a trading hub, bilingualism was inevitable. And because the population is descended from a mix of Chinese and British settlers, Hong Kong is something of a melting pot with a unique cultural tradition unlike anywhere else in Asia.

Yes, but most of the native Mandarin speakers emigrated to the island during the later half of the last century to escape poverty, famine and political oppression. As such, Mandarin is sometimes seen in a negative light relative to Cantonese. It’s the immigrant tongue, so to speak, which is looked down upon by established Hong Kongers. My partner is a translator specializing in Southeast Asia business relations. We met in Beijing Airport even though we both live in Austin, Texas, and she’s a native Texan. I’m a Yankee immigrant, and never been to Hong Kong myself :-P

Hummm..I don’t think so. The Pre-show at the Haunted Mansion is a bit of talking in the ‘stretching room’…before you get in the doom buggies. The Tiki Room had a preshow outside the “tiki room”..and there’s a set up for Tower of Terror.–and even Rock and Roller Coaster.
The list could go on and on…about preshows; one of my favorites was the “ExterTERRORESTAL” before they changed that attraction to Snitch. (yeah, it was a little Too Intense in it’s original form).

Looks like a lot of fun, but I wouldn’t even relate this to the Haunted Mansions at other parks. This is clearly a different beast altogether.
If anything, I’d describe this as “The Adventurers Club re-imagined as a high tech dark ride”.
Hong Kong Disneyland is quite small in area, so they focus on compact attractions that doesnt amass too much queuing.

What is the ride system? The cars look like it’s a self contained trackless system. Seems that would be prone to break down and ride delays from one car getting stuck and clogging the flow.
You can see them at the very end shot.

According to the wikis, the cars are indeed trackless, guided by GPS or bluetooth or something similar. Wich has the advantage that the imagineers rather easily can re-route the entire ride trough the building if they want to try out something new. Indeed, there is already a “deleted scene” in the house: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2587/3928647203_a4a67f8cb1_b.jpg

That’s pretty interesting. It would also mean that certain scenes could be refurbished or up dated without closing the entire attraction. I’d think they (the cars) would be guided by IR paint on the floor or a wired signal. Or something just a bit more accurate than GPS.

It does look like it’s a off shoot of the “Universe of Energy” moving theater seats.

No, according to Disney it’s all done with a designated wireless positioning system developed by them. If you check the wiki link above there is a section written in engrish that explains why it’s really a “trackless system”.Also, there’s this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pooh%27s_Hunny_Hunt#Track

Electroluminescent is electrically-activated phosphor. It’s not paint. Did you mean day-glow / blacklight glow stuff like phosphorescent? Most of the effects seem to be projected on glass or plastic unless the pixie-dust is fiber optic?